Wednesday, 13 April 2016

HR 1493: US Senate Votes to Ban Imports of Syrian Antiquities

Latest news on HR 1493 (Steven Lee Myers, 'Senate Votes to Ban Imports of Syrian Art and Antiquities, New York Times April 13, 2016): The Senate voted on Wednesday to ban the import of virtually all ancient art and artifacts from Syria to discourage the looting and trafficking of illicit objects by the Islamic State and other armed groups.

The
Senate voted by unanimous consent, reflecting broad bipartisan support,
but it did so after months of delay and debate over the legislation,
which the House of Representatives passed last year. The bill’s
provisions would fulfill commitments the United States supported at the
United Nations Security Council more than a year ago to try to choke off
the trade of so-called blood antiquities that the Islamic State, the
Nusra Front, Al Qaeda and other groups use to help finance their military operations in Syria and Iraq.

The
newspaper suggests that "the Senate’s action closed a loophole in American law", no, it narrows a significant gap in US law, and highlights the need to deal with that gap which places more than the heritage of just Syria at risk of being exploited by greedy US dealers and collectors. White House spokesman, Peter Boogaard, issued a statement

welcoming the Congressional action and pledging to “enhance our ability
to identify and prosecute those who unlawfully acquire or sell precious
historical artifacts.” The legislation should soon
move to the White House for a signature. It broadly mirrors a law
adopted after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 that banned imports
of culturally or historical significant objects from that country.

HR 1493 was opposed all along the way by the lobbyists of the international antiquities trade (the bit that operates no-questions-asked). They have lost their fight to "preserve [what they understand to be] collectors' rights", let us see what they do now.

Meanwhile there is one element of the new law which awakens my misgivings:

The
legislation includes an exemption that would allow some objects to
enter the United States temporarily for safekeeping in instances where
they might otherwise be destroyed.

And who decides when that "might" is the case? And how "temporary' is this US temporary? We remember the Hungarian Crown which they held onto far too long and the scandal of the "help" they offered in conserving the Iraqi Jewish archive which they then decided they would keep in the US - not to mention the Auschwitz barrack I discussed here earlier. US collections and commerce have exhibited a voracious tendency to grab large amounts of everybody else's heritage (calling it theirs as "common" heritage). Why should heritage assets go to the US instead of a neighbouring country? If the US is going to take anything out of Syria and Iraq, there are thousands of people who have lost their homes, families, places of work due to the civil war which the US is commonly believed to be co-responsible for and demonstrated to be helpless to stop (familiar story). Neighbouring countries and Europe are expected to provide a solution to the refugee problem. Instead of pots and stones, let the American do-gooders save some real living people.

No comments:

About Me

British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.

Abbreviations used in this blog

"coiney" - a term I use for private collector of dug up ancient coins, particularly a member of the Moneta-L forum or the ACCG

"heap-of-artefacts-on-a-table-collecting" the term rather speaks for itself, an accumulation of loose artefacts with no attempt to link each item with documented origins. Most often used to refer to metal detectorists (ice-cream tubs-full) and ancient coin collectors (Roman coins sold in aggregated bulk lots)